Brought attention to the illegal surveillance operations being conducted both at home and abroad. A goddamned hero
Then he got swept up in Obama’s crackdown on whistleblowers. Not so fun fact, Obama prosecuted more individuals under the 1917 espionage act than all other presidents combined.
sailingtroy on
America will continue to spiral so long as it punishes it’s truth tellers and emboldens its law breakers.
Revolutionary-Key650 on
Liveing for how long?
Sturnella2017 on
The fact he lives in Russia casts a serious pall over anything and everything he did. If he’s a champion of democracy, freedom, and transparency, then why did he flee to what is arguably the biggest threat to democracy and freedom in the world (at least it was at the time)?
Stevko_1 on
some might say hes living in Russia
Odd-Row-6996 on
Can he do the same sort of leak for epstein files?
mental_issues_ on
Is he going to leak Russian secrets next?
SoyMurcielago on
Meanwhile surveillance continues. It’s just hidden in terms and conditions on end user license agreements now
WhisperFray on
When this is interesting as fuck and no one questions it, I know I’m old. Guy made headlines when I was younger.
wellobviouslythatsso on
It’s really sad. He was right about all this shit. Actually stood on his principles that this surveillance state crap was not just morally indefensible, but also constitutionally and legally very flawed.
He’s a hero in my book.
Sad-Math-2039 on
Other than the blatantly obvious reason that the government doesn’t care about it’s citizens, what is the point of making whistleblowing illegal?!
zenezena on
I’m officially old.
Spoonyyy on
If you think snowden is a hero you really don’t understand how things work. There was a whole committee and organization specifically built for assisting him with what he wanted to do without putting american lives at risk and he said fuck that I want the clout. Nothing more than some idiot who got too much access to something and wanted glory. People who crusade hi as some great service to America just miss the boat. Yes, he showed some of the surveillance piece, but what has become of that other than continuing to break down processes.
Specialist_Shirt_164 on
It didn’t go the way he thought it would, most people went “huh? Ok , whatever” and right back on their phones.
Voidmire on
And nothing came of it. Country still does it. I get people want the Epstein files released fully as well, but if they did the folks in charge would shrug and the country would do absolutely nothing after a couple weeks of outrage.
KapnKrumpin on
And people wonder why no one is willing to step up and blow the whistle on all the heinous things happening behind the scenes.
rockntumble on
It’s like we all forgot. Or just are too cognitively distorted to care.
TheLoneTomatoe on
Adds absolutely nothing to the conversation, but I currently live about 5 minutes walking from his last office before he bailed out to blow the whistle
LordOfPies on
Russian asset
Gacrome on
He also stole significantly more docs that had nothing to do with the NSA mass surveillance program. He wanted leverage when he fled and he also didn’t redact spy names before turning it over to journalists who also didn’t redact it properly exposing people in the field. He exposed how we collected intel on terror cells and terror groups changed tactics after the reveal. He aided the enemy regardless of how you feel about the other stuff.
Renbarre on
Didn’t he also out some operatives thanks to those leaks?
Important-Key7413 on
Someone graduated from the school of learing….
_TP2_ on
I seem to rember that wikileaks adviced him not to expose himself.
Low-Temperature-4918 on
Isn’t this commonly known already?
JaxAttacks12 on
Wtf is this comment section? Guys he lives in Russia because anywhere else would have seen him sent back to the US and then Guantanamo. Additionally they probably send his wife to prison as well. Russia is bad, torture is worse.
Dimka1498 on
On his book, he has a quote I never forget, and is that idea that made him start looking into US surveillance:
“If our enemies are doing something sinister, then there is a high chance we will also do it in the future or we might have been doing it already”.
mca1169 on
the tragic irony of Edward Snowdens sacrifice is that after the NSA was no longer able to spy on US citizens secretly the cooperate sector took over and made the situation 20X worse. now everything you do online is known, packaged and sold to anyone who wants it.
all of that in addition to Wi-Fi signals being able to track your whereabouts in your own home, amazon echo devices and your phones secretly recording everything in microphone range along with anything done on the device. cars having microphones in them and in some cases being able to be shut down remotely. your “smart” TV’s reporting everything you watch and “recommending” things they want you to watch vs what you want to watch.
the system Snowden exposed was childs play compared to the incomprehensively huge and publicly known mass surveillance state the corporations have in place today. no other society in the history of humanity has ever gathered such an amount of data about it’s peoples every day lives.
As if that wasn’t enough now they are cracking down on the internet as a whole requiring your ID be directly connected to your computers operating system in California to the major websites you visit and communication apps you use daily. all in the name of “protecting the children”.
If you live in the US your freedom was bought and sold a long time ago. the rest of the world is soon to fall.
thegeekprofessor on
I worked at the NSA at the time and it was interesting times. They did not respond well, probably because, as the 60 minutes episode explains – they actually DID collect on US persons. That and Congress asked the NSA for data in response and the NSA falsified the records. Yes, I reported it. No, nothing came of it, though that might have contributed to their decision to falsify my security records and pull my clearance.
Crazy-Project-1511 on
Ah yes. Liveing.Â
Yveltia on
And now he’s a pro Russian
GreatService9515 on
Fuck him
splycedaddy on
If only he had stayed in US people might have cared. Fleeing to Russia discredited him. He would have likely lived out his life in supermax prison until someone would have pardoned him. Saddest thing is the surveillance state on Americans has only grown 10x under the current admin
34 Comments
Should have been seen as a hero.
Brought attention to the illegal surveillance operations being conducted both at home and abroad. A goddamned hero
Then he got swept up in Obama’s crackdown on whistleblowers. Not so fun fact, Obama prosecuted more individuals under the 1917 espionage act than all other presidents combined.
America will continue to spiral so long as it punishes it’s truth tellers and emboldens its law breakers.
Liveing for how long?
The fact he lives in Russia casts a serious pall over anything and everything he did. If he’s a champion of democracy, freedom, and transparency, then why did he flee to what is arguably the biggest threat to democracy and freedom in the world (at least it was at the time)?
some might say hes living in Russia
Can he do the same sort of leak for epstein files?
Is he going to leak Russian secrets next?
Meanwhile surveillance continues. It’s just hidden in terms and conditions on end user license agreements now
When this is interesting as fuck and no one questions it, I know I’m old. Guy made headlines when I was younger.
It’s really sad. He was right about all this shit. Actually stood on his principles that this surveillance state crap was not just morally indefensible, but also constitutionally and legally very flawed.
He’s a hero in my book.
Other than the blatantly obvious reason that the government doesn’t care about it’s citizens, what is the point of making whistleblowing illegal?!
I’m officially old.
If you think snowden is a hero you really don’t understand how things work. There was a whole committee and organization specifically built for assisting him with what he wanted to do without putting american lives at risk and he said fuck that I want the clout. Nothing more than some idiot who got too much access to something and wanted glory. People who crusade hi as some great service to America just miss the boat. Yes, he showed some of the surveillance piece, but what has become of that other than continuing to break down processes.
It didn’t go the way he thought it would, most people went “huh? Ok , whatever” and right back on their phones.
And nothing came of it. Country still does it. I get people want the Epstein files released fully as well, but if they did the folks in charge would shrug and the country would do absolutely nothing after a couple weeks of outrage.
And people wonder why no one is willing to step up and blow the whistle on all the heinous things happening behind the scenes.
It’s like we all forgot. Or just are too cognitively distorted to care.
Adds absolutely nothing to the conversation, but I currently live about 5 minutes walking from his last office before he bailed out to blow the whistle
Russian asset
He also stole significantly more docs that had nothing to do with the NSA mass surveillance program. He wanted leverage when he fled and he also didn’t redact spy names before turning it over to journalists who also didn’t redact it properly exposing people in the field. He exposed how we collected intel on terror cells and terror groups changed tactics after the reveal. He aided the enemy regardless of how you feel about the other stuff.
Didn’t he also out some operatives thanks to those leaks?
Someone graduated from the school of learing….
I seem to rember that wikileaks adviced him not to expose himself.
Isn’t this commonly known already?
Wtf is this comment section? Guys he lives in Russia because anywhere else would have seen him sent back to the US and then Guantanamo. Additionally they probably send his wife to prison as well. Russia is bad, torture is worse.
On his book, he has a quote I never forget, and is that idea that made him start looking into US surveillance:
“If our enemies are doing something sinister, then there is a high chance we will also do it in the future or we might have been doing it already”.
the tragic irony of Edward Snowdens sacrifice is that after the NSA was no longer able to spy on US citizens secretly the cooperate sector took over and made the situation 20X worse. now everything you do online is known, packaged and sold to anyone who wants it.
all of that in addition to Wi-Fi signals being able to track your whereabouts in your own home, amazon echo devices and your phones secretly recording everything in microphone range along with anything done on the device. cars having microphones in them and in some cases being able to be shut down remotely. your “smart” TV’s reporting everything you watch and “recommending” things they want you to watch vs what you want to watch.
the system Snowden exposed was childs play compared to the incomprehensively huge and publicly known mass surveillance state the corporations have in place today. no other society in the history of humanity has ever gathered such an amount of data about it’s peoples every day lives.
As if that wasn’t enough now they are cracking down on the internet as a whole requiring your ID be directly connected to your computers operating system in California to the major websites you visit and communication apps you use daily. all in the name of “protecting the children”.
If you live in the US your freedom was bought and sold a long time ago. the rest of the world is soon to fall.
I worked at the NSA at the time and it was interesting times. They did not respond well, probably because, as the 60 minutes episode explains – they actually DID collect on US persons. That and Congress asked the NSA for data in response and the NSA falsified the records. Yes, I reported it. No, nothing came of it, though that might have contributed to their decision to falsify my security records and pull my clearance.
Ah yes. Liveing.Â
And now he’s a pro Russian
Fuck him
If only he had stayed in US people might have cared. Fleeing to Russia discredited him. He would have likely lived out his life in supermax prison until someone would have pardoned him. Saddest thing is the surveillance state on Americans has only grown 10x under the current admin
Need an Edward Snowden for the Epstein files